


Coach Dad

by rickyisms



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Christmas, Coach Whiskey, Coach!Whiskey, Established Relationship, Kid Fic, M/M, New Years, World Juniors, giving Raylan his own tag on ao3 because he deserves it, teen for swearing, they are dads
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-26
Updated: 2020-12-26
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:00:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28335027
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rickyisms/pseuds/rickyisms
Summary: the fact that the world junior championship is at Christmas really sucks when you're trying to build a coaching career but you're also a new and incredibly devoted dad.(in which whiskey loves his son and his partner and he has to deal with spending the holidays away from them after he's offered an assistant coaching job with USA Hockey)
Relationships: Kent "Parse" Parson/Connor "Whiskey" Whisk
Comments: 10
Kudos: 60





	Coach Dad

**Author's Note:**

> i am babysitting Raylan who is the invention of my wonderful friend zia and this fic is mostly for them (please Look At The Baby https://fanartshmanart.tumblr.com/search/raylan%20parson) but it is also for me because i saw several babies playing in the snow while i was shoveling my parents' driveway for them and so i have Baby Brain and it will not go away until i write about a cute baby

“I think you should go,” Kent’s holding the ladder while Whiskey puts up the last of the Christmas lights. 

It’s November 18th, but Kent insisted they do it as soon as possible, and Whiskey won’t tell Kent no. 

“Babe, I told you, I’d rather stay here,” Whiskey looks down the ladder, “Pass me the bulb, this one’s burnt out.”

Kent obliges but keeps talking, “This is the definition of once in a lifetime. We’ve got  _ at least _ , 65 more Christmases in us.”

“I’m not missing Christmas,” Whiskey says.

“Not even for USA hockey?” Kent teases. 

Whiskey laughs, avoids the question, “I still don’t know why they’d ask  _ me _ .”

“Because you’re really good at your job and the guy who was supposed to do it had a fucking heart attack. I was there when you got the phone call.”

Whiskey very determinedly focuses on the twinkling Christmas lights and the eavestrough. 

“Don’t think I haven’t noticed how you decided to have this conversation when I have nowhere to escape, pass me the hammer.”

Kent passes him the hammer, “You wouldn’t have the conversation otherwise.”

“There’s no conversation to have.”

“Baby, I know you,” Kent says, “You would have  _ killed  _ to work for the national team before.”

“Before we had a kid, yeah,” Whiskey says. 

Whiskey’s been doing some work with USA hockey in addition to his minor league coaching job. He runs skating clinics sometimes, does a lot of stuff with college level players. He’s not a stranger to travelling, to leaving his family for a few days, but it’s different this time. 

“A kid who won’t notice if we have Christmas a week or two early,” Kent points out. 

Whiskey groans as he realizes Kent just scored a point. 

“I do want it,” he admits, “It’s… USA Hockey, it’s a national tournament. But I’d miss you, I’d miss Ray. We can’t take a toddler to Helsinki, you have games to play in the New Year. It wouldn’t work.”

“Stop thinking of all the reasons it wouldn’t and start thinking of all the reasons it would.”

Whiskey sighs, there are a lot of reasons it would work. A lot of reasons it should. Kent had played at the World Juniors tournament twice, once when he was 17, and again when he was 18, and Whiskey remembers watching those games and thinking about how one day he wanted to be there, to win a gold medal. Granted, he always thought it was going to be as a player. 

“It’s USA Hockey, baby, do or die,” Kent smirks. 

Whiskey just shakes his head, but he smiles about it. 

It takes three more conversations that night before Whiskey finally picks up the phone and agrees to take the place of the poor assistant coach who had a heart attack last weekend and has strict orders to avoid stress, travel, and cold, all things inherent to hockey. 

They have a little dinner, just the three of them, the night before Whiskey leaves. They eat pasta and watch a Christmas movie and give Raylan his present. He’s getting to the point where he’s just learning to string sentences together, so when Kent hands him a box wrapped in giftwrap, he lets out the tiniest little. 

“Thank you Daddy,”

“You’re welcome, buddy,” Kent pats the top of his head. 

“Open now?” Raylan asks. 

“Yep,” Whiskey says. 

Raylan tears into the paper and grins when he sees the package. 

“Thank you!” Raylan says again, and he drops the set of mini sticks and the tiny little net to go along with them and runs over to Kent and Whiskey and gives them both a big hug. 

Whiskey reconsiders Helsinki right then and there. 

“Do you want to show Papa what you made for him?” Kent asks. 

Raylan nods and grins and lifts up one of the couch cushions and grabs a card from underneath. He hands it to Whiskey and Whiskey has to blink a tear out of his eye. 

“To Papi love Raylan and Daddy,” Whiskey reads, it’s clearly in Kent’s handwriting, so is the note,  _ Merry Christmas, we love you all the way to Helsinki and back. You’re our favourite coach.  _ There’s scribbles underneath, red and purple crayon, Raylan’s current favourite colours. 

“Aw, come here,” Whiskey says and he holds out his arms. Raylan walks into them and Whiskey scoops him up into a hug and holds him close to his chest. 

“You know that this is the last night I’m going to be here for a while, right?” Whiskey asks. 

Raylan nods, “I know. Daddy said for hockey.”

“Yeah,” Whiskey says, “for hockey.”

“For you,” Raylan holds out his fist. 

Whiskey holds out his hand and Raylan drops a bracelet into it. There are red and purple beads and one that looks like a dinosaur and another that’s just the letter N, which is none of their initials. Whiskey grabs Raylan and squeezes tighter. 

“See you on TV,” Raylan says. 

Whiskey laughs, because of course Kent told their son about that part. 

“You will,” Whiskey says, “And you know who we cheer for?” Whiskey asks. 

“USA!” Raylan answers enthusiastically. 

“Wooo!” Kent cheers. 

They set up the net in the kitchen, and Kent spends fifteen minutes standing above their stove insisting that “You’re supposed to curve them.”

Whiskey keeps insisting that, “It smells like melted plastic, you’re going to give us all cancer.”

Once Kent finally gets the sticks curved the right way, he looks Raylan dead in the eye. 

“You’re on,” he says. 

Raylan giggles. Whiskey plays on Raylan’s team for a minute, because he knows otherwise Kent will end up trying to call a penalty on their toddler. 

He has to answer a phone call though, and then an email. He’s realized that coaching is only actually about 60% being in a hockey rink, the other parts are phone calls and emails and paperwork and other various forms of bullshit. The 60% make up for it though, they more than make up for it. Whiskey’s seen kids’ confidence shoot through the roof, he’s seen them set goals and surpass them and then set new goals. He’s seen guys score first goals in a league. The chance to see Team USA win a medal is on the table now. 

He can hear Kent and Raylan laughing in the kitchen and his heart aches, bittersweet. He thinks his family is perfect in just about every way and leaving now sucks. But hockey has his heart too, the more he practices with his team, the more he wants to win with him. The more he imagines the tournament, the more he wants to hurry up and get there. Sometimes you have to trade one love for another, just for a little while. 

“Papi!” Raylan’s voice rings through the air, “Come play coach!”

Whiskey laughs when he hears that. Ray’s seen him coach before, even if he’s still not quite sure on what that means. So Whiskey sits on the sidelines and he tells Ray what to do and Ray giggles and eventually he falls onto the floor and decides that it’s bedtime. Kent carries him to bed, Whiskey follows closely behind. 

“Night night,” Raylan mutters under his breath. 

Whiskey kisses the top of his head. 

“Love you, Ray” he coos. 

Kent puts his hands around Whiskey’s waist and kisses the side of his face. They walk out of Ray’s room quietly and then Whiskey sighs. 

“Merry Christmas,” Kent says. 

“It’s the 17th,” Whiskey says. 

Kent rolls his eyes, “Santa came this morning, we gave Ray his presents, I didn’t burn dinner and we called your mother. Sounds like Christmas to me.”

And then Whiskey laughs, “Okay fine, Merry Christmas.”

“There we go,” Kent teases. 

“I’m gonna miss him so much,” Whiskey says. 

“You’ll be back before you know it, with a brand new necklace to show him.”

Whiskey laughs and rolls his eyes. 

“You’re gonna crush it,” Kent says, “He’s already so excited for you.”

“Will he stay that excited?” Whiskey asks, worried about his son. 

“We’ll manage two weeks without you,” Kent assures him. 

“I know you can,” Whiskey says, “I just don’t want to fuck up Christmas for him. Y’know, the traditions and stuff?”

“We’ll have new traditions,” Kent says, “that’s what we did when I was in junior. None of us were home for Christmas, it didn’t mean we loved out families any less.”

“I don’t like it when you’re the rational one.”

“I love you,” Kent is the only person Whiskey knows who can make a declaration of love into a chirp.

Kent and Raylan drop him off at the airport and Whiskey cries a little bit when Raylan hugs him around the neck just before his gate. He keeps the card folded up in his wallet behind the family pictures they took in a photobooth last summer and he wears the bracelet on his wrist. 

Kent texts him the second he’s on the plane. 

**Kent:** **we’re watching you take off**

 **Kent:** **Ray likes watching the planes, we might be here longer than expected**

 **Kent:** **We love you!!!!!!!**

Whiskey relaxes into his seat as his phone pings again and he finds a picture of Kent and Raylan sitting in front of a window somewhere. The light coming in through the window makes Kent look especially beautiful and Raylan has a delighted but crazy look in his eyes as he grins, his chubby little hands are reaching out like he’s trying to grab the camera. Whiskey saves the photo and sets it as his home screen. He puts his headphones in and he gets a video just as the plane takes off.

He sees the tarmac and the plane he’s currently in through a window. He hears Kent’s voice through his headphones, gentle and talking to Raylan. 

“Say bye,” he says. 

Whiskey sees the back of Raylan’s head, his hands reach up and press against the glass. 

“Bye-Bye Papi!” Raylan says, “Love you,” he adds. 

“We’re so proud of you,” he hears Kent’s voice. 

“See you on TV!” Raylan says, incredibly excited at the prospect, and Whiskey smiles through a couple tears rolling down his face

**Author's Note:**

> i'm working on the other fics, i promise, this one was just festively appropriate, okay (there's a part 2 and 3)


End file.
